


Witness

by mydeira, Sadbhyl



Series: Responsible Adults (aka, The Menageaverse) [49]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-07
Updated: 2012-06-07
Packaged: 2017-11-07 04:41:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/427004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydeira/pseuds/mydeira, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sadbhyl/pseuds/Sadbhyl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Our eyes don’t always tell us the truth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Witness

**Author's Note:**

> Set less than a week after the events of You Can’t Always Get What You Want and Father Figure.
> 
> Written by Sadbhyl, beta'd by Mydeira

Loneliness drove Joyce back to the Magic Box.

The morning after her encounter with Rupert and the subsequent fight with Buffy, Rupert had come by the gallery with coffee, croissants and an apology. They had made up and spent a pleasant half hour talking about inconsequentials over breakfast, but things still remained strained between them. She began to question whether they could ever return to the easy camaraderie of the early days of their relationship.

Joyce knew she hadn’t been fair to him. She’d been caught between the two of them often enough to know what an untenable position it was. But the knowledge that the two of them had spent a companionable and, for all she knew intimate, afternoon together without her made her feel unwanted and abandoned. It dredged up all the dark emotional issues she had developed during and after her divorce up from the depths all those years of therapy had consigned them to. Lashing out at Rupert had been all too easy. He had always submitted to her in the past. The pressures of the last six months must be wearing on him as heavily as they were on her for him to have snapped like that and let Ripper have free rein with her. A part of her regretted having driven him to that. But another part reveled in the intensity of it. It was the first time since Buffy died that he hadn’t held back from her. It was also the first time he had responded to her like that, arousing her darker passion. Ethan was the one who usually touched that side of her. The reminder of it made her miss his presence even more.

So she was here to try to talk to Rupert, to try to explain all this, for him to help her make sense of it all. She knew he had seen it in her that night, all the confusion and emptiness that she just couldn’t hold in any more.

“Hello, Joyce!” Anya smiled brightly. “Have you come to spend money for a change?”

Joyce couldn’t help smiling at the girl’s usual greeting. “Not today. I’m looking for Rupert, if he’s around.”

Anya drooped a little but obviously expected the response. “He’s back in the training room.”

“Thanks.” She noticed the bridal magazines open in front of the girl. “How go the wedding plans?”

This time Anya’s sigh was much more put upon. “There are so many decisions. What colors, what dresses for the bridesmaids, flowers, paper products, caterers. I just can’t keep it all straight.”

“Well, I would suggest keeping it simple. It’ll be easier to keep it organized, and you won’t have so much to worry about. Your wedding is a special day, you should be able to enjoy it.”

She looked up at Joyce with wide, hopeful eyes. “Do you think I could come to your house and you could help me? Xander keeps telling me it’s my choice and then disagreeing with my decisions. I would really like another opinion.”

Joyce was surprised at the request, and a bit touched. “Of course. I’d be delighted.”

“How’s tomorrow night?”

“Tomorrow night would be perfect. Come by the house around seven.”

“Thank you!” The sound of relief in her voice warmed Joyce’s heart. “I won’t keep you from Giles. He and Ethan will be glad to see you.”

All good feeling bled away.

The door to the training room was standing open, so Joyce stood back far enough not to be seen, but where she could see into the room clearly.

Rupert was bent close over Tara’s shoulder at the empty display case, explaining something from the book open in front of her.

Ethan stood off to the side, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, watching Willow critically. She stood in the middle of the floor, concentrating fiercely as she slowly levitated a tennis ball up to eye height and then with a flick of her wrist sent it whistling to bounce off a target at the far end of the room.

“Better,” Ethan said sternly, “but you need to work on your visualization more. Until you see it hitting the center of the target clearly, you won’t be able to do it.”

“I’m trying,” Willow said. Joyce was surprised to hear it not come out as a childish whine, but as a simple statement of fact. “It’s just hard not to use my eyes instead.”

“Do you need a blindfold?”

She looked at him. “No, Obi-wan, I think I can manage.”

“A Jedi sees with her heart, not with her mind,” he said sententiously.

Willow laughed. “You said you hadn’t seen those movies!”

“Self-defense.” His tone was suffering, but his expression playful. “If I’d had to listen to one more reference without being able to respond, I think I would have hurt something. Most likely you. Now, back to work.”

With a last, pleased chuckle, Willow refocused her attention, one ball floating up off the floor.

Joyce was confused. What was she seeing here? It looked as though Ethan was teaching Willow magic, and Rupert was condoning it. But he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, not after what Willow had done, what Ethan had helped her do.

“Now narrow your focus,” Ethan was saying. “Close your eyes if you need to for now. In real combat, you’ll need to keep them open, of course, but we can correct that later.”

The ball hovered, rotating slowly in suspension.

“When you see it,” Ethan’s low, steady voice sent prickles along Joyce’s neck, “when it’s clear in your mind, let it go.”

The ball shifted, turning slowly the other way. Joyce jumped in surprise when it shot into action, firing across the room to smack into the target dead center.

“Again,” Ethan commanded.

The next ball rose more quickly, hung only a moment in midair before flying true.

“Again!”

There was no hesitation this time as the ball flew up and across, once again striking the target dead center.

“Again!”

This time the ball launched directly from the pile on the floor to strike the outermost edge of the target’s center.

Willow collapsed to her knees, panting as though she had just run a mile full out.

Ethan moved to crouch next to her, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Are you alright?”

When Willow looked up, Joyce saw the girl’s face was glowing. “I did it. I did it!” She threw her arms around Ethan’s neck.

He glanced up at Rupert, who was smiling with equal pride, his arm around Tara’s shoulder. At Rupert’s nod, Ethan closed his arms around Willow, returning the embrace. “Well, that last attempt was a bit sloppy. But yes, you did it. And you did it the right way. You controlled it this time, not the other way around. I’m proud of you, my girl.”

The comfort they shared, the closeness, tore at Joyce’s insides, but it was hearing her nickname used for someone else that finally shattered her composure. She backed up a step, wanting to slip away unnoticed.

And was caught by broad hands as she bumped into Xander. “Hey, Mrs. Summers! Didn’t mean to trip over you.”

The two men in the training room instantly turned in her direction, but she couldn’t bear to see their expressions. She pulled herself out of Xander’s hands and rushed out of the store, never looking back.


End file.
